home to the lil' quirky side of my brain that is philosophical, imaginative and mildly sadistic

13 January 2010

Tres Leches Cake

I said that I wanted to take off to another world baking my Tres Leches cake. Well, I did not. I am a procrastinator after all. I only did it the next day.

Tres Leches was something I had been wanting to try weeks ago. Stumbled across Pioneer Woman’s blog while procrastinating and saw the recipe. It seemed simple and fail-proof, but I didn’t have a mixer then in Cyber so I put it on my in-Kuching-to-do-list .

In the end it did not turn out very fail-proof. It ended up somewhere between a pass and fail. I would say a GPA of 2.0-2.5? My dogs liked it, that counts, right? My mother refused to eat it, she said she had a gastricky feeling so she couldn't take any cake. I really don't see the connection between cake and the gastricky feeling. The bf said it was too sweet, in a “how can we afford to eat so many of your overly sweet things” kind of manner. Owh well, at least the dogs liked it.

This is the cake that came out of the oven.

It smelled great in there, and hopes were high. But it came out, and it aged real quick, as in it started shrink and became wrinkly. I was starting to smell a strong hint of baking powder too. I checked the picture on the recipe in panic, and to my relieve, Pioneer Woman’s was a little wrinkly too. I was on the right path after all. But that awful baking powder smell was still there. I don't like one bit of baking powder smell in my stuff.

This is how my beautiful, awesome smelling cake where i had high hopes of ended up 5 minutes later.

Can't cry over split milk, so i proceeded to poke and stab the cake to release my agony.

Flooded it with milk; evaporated, condensed and cream. Yes, that's a calculator back there. I'm so bad at math, (i suspect my Form6 math teacher expected me to fail STPM math) i need a calculator everytime i bake to get my ratios right.

There were two cakes because I could not find a baking tin big enough to hold all the batter. I one sibling must feel inferior because the other is much prettier. I feel a bit bad putting them through sibling rivalry. =P

This is the prettier one:

And this is the uglier sister:

But in the end, owh well, lesson learnt. Reduce sugar, reduce baking powder, and reduce ratio of condensed milk to evaporated milk. I’m going to try this again someday, and make only half the size because I don’t want my dogs ending up diabetic since humans aren’t coming near my creation anytime soon. But i did like the fact that it was so overly sweet and a little soggy and melts in my mouth. I just didn't like the fact that it had a wee bit of baking powder smell. I can't stand baking powder smell -_-|||

PS: I’m starting to miss Cyberjaya and regret is creepin in for bookin that return ticket one week late.